A Edward Rothstein writes a short little article regarding the power of fear and how it was used at a conference on fear at the New School University. Though short in many senses the article does hit on some very good points regarding how some who would have Americans rally against "fear," are in fact using fear itself to drive on that goal. Points are made about the use of language that the speakers used, including Al Gore, to "galvanize" the crowd and then continued to feed off it to drive "fear of the Administration" farther and farther into the audience's minds.
It's funny really how much this points to a deeper characeristic I find among farther left liberals. They seemingly have a habit of projecting everything they are ultimately about, onto conservatives. Conservatives are racist and yet they accept Robert Bryd into their party and continue to force employers and schools to look at a student's "color," as a determining factor in whether a person gets a job or attends the school. Conservatives are trying to take away personal freedom and yet conservatives regularly on college campuses are shouted down or are refused the same platform given to liberal groups. And there are other such examples. So here we have Al Gore tell you that you should fear the person currently in the White House because he is using fear to subvert your freedoms. Or is it that Al Gore is the one to be feared? How many of us said to ourselves, privately or publically, that we were glad that Gore wasn't in the White House when 9/11 occured? It makes you wonder.
The issue I have with fear in American society that I have stems from the fact that in this great democratic process we have, there should be no reason to fear candidate nor incumbent. They can always be voted out and that this is a government "For the People and By the People." Government is to submit to the people's will, not the other way around. I get a kick out of the pundits that will routinely mention conservatives "fearing" John Kerry. I'm sorry but I trust the American people more than that. Either way I will state conservatives will use fear from time to time to get the point across, and often I believe that is justified. Sometimes not sure, but I have been told to fear less by conservatives than I have by liberals. My experience is limited though so I could always be wrong. But I doubt it.
UPDATE: The NY Post has their own take on it.
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